The President tweeted something racist today. I’m not going to get into specifics. Sadly, the specifics won’t matter much for the reason I’ll explain below. This will probably be the only time I will address this on this blog. It really only needs to be talked about once because it’s a repeating cycle.
The responses on the right and left are predictable. Many #NeverTrumpers and reluctant Trump supporters will write and speak out on how wrong what the President said was or at least how foolish it was. The reluctant Trump supporters will wring their hands but will never consider washing them of President Trump.
His fan base will rush to his defense, defend the statement, or try to gaslight us into believing we didn’t read what we just read. They’ll insist President Trump isn’t a racist (as if it matters whether Trump uses racially charged language out of a belief in white supremacy or just to stir up hatred for his own political benefit.)
The morally bankrupt defense of the President will be bolstered when the left responds to the statement in a way that goes massively over the top and leads even those who criticized Trump to remember their anti-anti-Trumpism.
The Left will increase the effectiveness of the “whataboutism” being hurled by Trump fans over the Democrats support for bigots in the distant past and more recent times. Then either a leftist presidential candidate will come up with some extreme policy proposal or President Trump will end the old controversy by starting a new one.
At the end of the day, many people will walk away a little angrier and a little more afraid. Others will shred a little more decency and increase the level of awfulness they’ll put up with to get what they want. While still others will feel a little more depressed and disenchanted with the state of our politics. It’s the slow corrosion of America’s civic soul.
Here, we won’t be participating in this circus. Likewise, the book We Can Do Better, America is about solutions and how we break this cycle. Both major parties have problems with bigots that they refuse to address, whether it’s alt-righters for the Republicans or the left-wing anti-Semites that find an easy home in the Democratic Party.
We need a new conservative party that will welcome Americans from every race, ethnicity, and creed to unite behind the principles of political liberty and limited government. I believe a new party should follow the principles laid out by George Washington in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island and give “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
Our focus will be on breaking America’s ongoing destructive cycle.
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